Any discussion of the prior art throughout the specification should in no way be considered as an admission that such prior art is widely known or forms part of common general knowledge in the field.
EGMs which allow a user to play a game upon purchase of credit are known. Such EGMs generally include a validator for assessing token of some description, which is presented or inserted by a user to effect payment for credit. The token may be a banknote or a coin inserted into the machine, for example. In such cases, the inserted currency must be assessed to ensure that it is not counterfeit or foreign currency. In other cases, the token may be a card having a magnetic strip or a chip, or it may be a radio frequency (RFID) tag identifying a particular user or a user account. In such cases, the token must be assessed to ensure that it is of a type that may be used to purchase credit.
Various devices exist to perform this assessment: coin acceptors assess coins; bill validators assess banknotes; and card and tag readers read cards and RFID tags. Except where a more limited construction is clearly intended, the term “validator” in this document includes any device for assessing a token used to obtain credit for, or access to functionality of, a machine, or access to a location, a resource, or an account.
It is known for validators to store status information indicative of, for example, the number of assessments performed and the number of tokens accepted/rejected. This information is accessible by maintenance or other personnel for determining whether maintenance of the validator is necessary.